Jaimeo Brown

Transcendence / featuring Chris Sholar and Jaleel Shaw

27 JAN 2017
21:00

Upper Stage

A dialogue between art and history. Music that echoes protests and sounds like a call for freedom, bringing together elements from the blues, jazz, and hip hop. An anti-racist humanist manifesto. Historical recordings of workers in farms and prisons. Afro-futurism with "fire and love"…

Music rooted in periods of repression and oppression; songs from tragic moments of history, whose rhythm is set by the lifting and lowering of the pickaxe. Past and future are weaved together in order to "surpass pain through strength and solidarity". New York-based composer, drummer, academic, and activist Jaimeo Brown grew up in a violent environment. He discovered multiculturalism through the hip-hop culture of the West Coast, a music scene open to minorities. His inspirations include DJ Premier, Dr. Dre, and J. Dilla, as well as such jazz pioneers as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Art Blakey. These artists provided a refuge, and also became the "epicentre of [his] spiritual awakening".

A music group with great history, Jaimeo Brown Transcendence is also a movement, a production, and a manifesto. It was created when the drummer met saxophonist Jaleel Shaw and guitarist Chris Sholar, while looking into sources for primary material of historical recordings. They started working together with a MPC machine they found in a recycle bin!

Inspired by confinement and hard labour and with a strong social perspective, Work Songs are timeless: in these songs, today is reflected in the gloom of the past. Its interpretation of this process is based on techniques that look to tomorrow through technology and ideology, with ample room for each musician to express himself. The respect of multiplicity can be seen in the importance of giving space for each musician’s voice, and maintaining the balance between individual identities and commonality. A new sound for pain, which transforms into a feast of new struggles for justice.